BACKGROUND: Low back pain is a highly prevalent health problem around the world, affecting 50% to 85% of people at some point in life. The purpose of this systematic review is to summarize the previous proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy studies on brain chemical changes in patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP). METHODS: We identified relevant studies from a literature search of PubMed and EMBASE from 1980 to March 2016. Data extraction was performed on the subjects' characteristics, MRS methods, spectral analyses, cerebral metabolites and perceptual measurements...

Importance: Developmental stuttering is a neuropsychiatric condition of incompletely understood brain origin. Our recent functional magnetic resonance imaging study indicates a possible partial basis of stuttering in circuits enacting self-regulation of motor activity, attention, and emotion. Objective: To further characterize the neurophysiology of stuttering through in vivo assay of neurometabolites in suspect brain regions. Design, Setting, and Participants: Proton chemical shift imaging of the brain was performed in a case-control study of children and adults with and without stuttering...

OBJECTIVE: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic psychiatric disorder leading to considerable distress and disability. Therapies are effective in a majority of paediatric patients, however, many only get partial response. It is therefore important to study the underlying pathophysiology of the disorder. METHODS: 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) was used to study the concentration of brain metabolites in four different locations (cingulate gyrus and sulcus, occipital cortex, thalamus and right caudate nucleus)...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by aggregation of amyloid beta (Aβ) into insoluble plaques. Intermediates, Aβ oligomers (Aβo), appear to be the mechanistic cause of disease. The de facto PET AD ligand, [(11)C]PIB, binds and visualizes Aβ plaque load, which does not correlate well with disease severity. Therefore, finding a dynamic target that changes with pathology progression in AD is of great interest. Aβo alter synaptic plasticity, inhibit long-term potentiation, and facilitate long-term depression; key mechanisms involved in memory and learning...

Although N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor antagonists-induced hypoglutamate rodent models are the most well-established models for preclinical studies of schizophrenia-related deficits, they also evoke a wide spectrum of psychotomimetic side effects. It is significant to increase the specificity of hypoglutamate rodent models. In this study, the recognition memory was evaluated in rats by object recognition test (ORT), sensorimotor gating was evaluated by prepulse inhibition of the startle reflex (PPI), and locomotor activity was measured using open field test...

The relationship between glutamate and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels in the living human brain and pain sensitivity is unknown. Combined glutamine/glutamate (Glx), as well as GABA levels can be measured in vivo with single-voxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. In this cross-sectional study, we aimed at determining whether Glx and/or GABA levels in pain-related brain regions are associated with individual differences in pain sensitivity. Experimental heat, cold, and mechanical pain thresholds were obtained from 39 healthy, drug-free individuals (25 men) according to the quantitative sensory testing protocol and summarized into 1 composite measure of pain sensitivity...

The apical dendrite of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells receives information from the entorhinal cortex via the dentate gyrus and CA3 (Schaffer-collateral (SC) input) proximally within the stratum radiatum (SR) and directly from the entorhinal cortex/thalamus distally within the stratum lacunosum-moleculare (SLM). During the early postnatal development, very low/low frequency (0.033-1Hz) activation of previously non-stimulated (naïve) SC synapses (SR-CA1 synapses) results in a stimulus-, but not frequency-, dependent depression which is explained by postsynaptic α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) silencing...

A series of parallel, integrated circuits link distinct regions of prefrontal cortex with specific nuclei of the striatum and thalamus. Dysfunction of these fronto-striato-thalamic systems is thought to play a major role in the pathogenesis of psychosis. In this review, we examine evidence from human and animal investigations that dysfunction of a specific dorsal fronto-striato-thalamic circuit, linking the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal (associative) striatum, and mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus, is apparent across different stages of psychosis, including prior to the onset of a first episode, suggesting that it represents a candidate risk biomarker...

This paper reviews the distribution of several bioactive substances and their possible physiological roles in the anterior thalamic nuclei of various species, with a special emphasis on the rat. The anterior thalamus is a part of extended hippocampal system and its significance for learning and memory processes is well known. Although our knowledge about a specific role of this brain structure has increased in recent years considerably, this is the first attempt to summarize neurochemical diversity of the anterior thalamus...

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy has demonstrated metabolite changes in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB); however, their pattern and relationship to clinical symptoms is unclear. To determine whether the spatial patterns of brain-metabolite changes in AD and DLB are regional or diffused, and to examine whether the key metabolite levels are associated with cognitive and non-cognitive symptoms, we acquired whole-brain spatially resolved 3T magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) data from subjects with AD (N=36), DLB (N=35) and similarly aged controls (N=35)...

Preterm birth represents a high risk of neurodevelopmental disabilities when associated with white-matter damage. Recent studies have reported cognitive deficits in children born preterm without brain injury on MRI at term-equivalent age. Understanding the microstructural and metabolic underpinnings of these deficits is essential for their early detection. Here, we used diffusion-weighted imaging and single-voxel 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to compare brain maturation at term-equivalent age in premature neonates with no evidence of white matter injury on conventional MRI except diffuse excessive high-signal intensity, and normal term neonates...

Neural circuits formed during postnatal development have to be maintained stably thereafter, but their mechanisms remain largely unknown. Here we report that the metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 1 (mGluR1) is essential for the maintenance of mature synaptic connectivity in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN). In mGluR1 knockout (mGluR1-KO) mice, strengthening and elimination at retinogeniculate synapses occurred normally until around postnatal day 20 (P20). However, during the subsequent visual-experience-dependent maintenance phase, weak retinogeniculate synapses were newly recruited...

Glutamate chemical exchange saturation transfer (GluCEST) MRI was used to measure metabolic changes in mice treated with 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) by mapping regional cerebral glutamate. The GluCEST contrast following MPTP treatment was correlated with (1) H-MR spectroscopy, motor function, and immunohistochemical measures. The GluCEST contrast was found to be significantly higher in the striatum and motor cortex of mice treated with MPTP than in controls (p < 0.001), which was confirmed by localized (1) H-MR spectroscopy...

We report the cases of a brother and a sister of nonconsanguineous parents who developed progressive microcephaly and had tremor, irritability, spasticity, startle reflexes, and permanent erratic myoclonus since birth. Focal clonic seizures, status epilepticus, and infantile spasms appeared later, during the first months of life, while erratic myoclonic jerks persisted. Electroencephalogram initially showed multifocal spikes that evolved into modified hypsarrhythmia and then discontinuous activity, evoking the progressive nature of the condition...

UNLABELLED: Stimulation of glutamatergic neurons in the subfornical organ drives drinking behavior, but the brain targets that mediate this response are not known. The densest target of subfornical axons is the anterior tip of the third ventricle, containing the median preoptic nucleus (MnPO) and organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis (OVLT), a region that has also been implicated in fluid and electrolyte management. The neurochemical composition of this region is complex, containing both GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons, but the possible roles of these neurons in drinking responses have not been addressed...

UNLABELLED: Sleep profoundly affects the emotional and motivational state. In humans and animals, loss of sleep often results in enhanced motivation for reward, which has direct implications for health risks as well as potential benefits. Current study aims at understanding the mechanisms underlying sleep deprivation (SDe)-induced enhancement of reward seeking. We found that after acute SDe, mice had an increase in sucrose seeking and consumption but not food intake, suggesting a selective enhancement of motivation for reward...

UNLABELLED: Nicotine and ethanol (EtOH) are among the most widely co-abused substances, and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) contribute to the behavioral effects of both drugs. Along with their role in addiction, nAChRs also contribute to motor control circuitry. The α7 nAChR subtype is highly expressed in the laterodorsal tegmental nucleus (LDTg), a brainstem cholinergic center that contributes to motor performance through its projections to thalamic motor relay centers, including the mediodorsal thalamus...

The mammillary body is an important neural component of limbic circuitry implicated in learning and memory. Excitatory and inhibitory inputs, primarily mediated by glutamate and gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA), respectively, converge and integrate in this region, before sending information to the thalamus. One potentially overlooked mechanism for inhibition of mammillary body neurons is through direct activation of Group II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs). Here, whole-cell patch clamp recordings of in vitro slice preparations containing the mammillary body nuclei of the mouse were employed to record responses to bath application of pharmacological agents to isolate the direct effect of activating Group II mGluRs...

Glutamate (Glu) and glutamine (Gln) play an important role in neuronal regulation and are of value as MRS-observable diagnostic biomarkers. In this study the relative concentrations of these metabolites have been measured in multiple regions in the normal brain using a short-TE whole-brain MRSI measurement at 3 T combined with a modified data analysis approach that used spatial averaging to obtain high-SNR spectra from atlas-registered anatomic regions or interest. By spectral fitting of high-SNR spectra this approach yielded reliable measurements across a wide volume of the brain...